Friday, June 10, 2011

Some players get no love - Loui Eriksson

About a month ago I completed another great trade with Sal from puckjunk.com. I had a few cards he needed for sets and he had a few cards that were on my wish list so we made a trade. One card that came over to me in the trade was a Loui Eriksson Young Gun. What surprised me about the card was how little it listed for in the Beckett. Isn't he an All-Star? This got me to thinking....

Isn't it strange how some players get NO hobby love? Loui Eriksson is a prime example of a good player who gets no love. If you look at the Beckett value of an 06-07 Eriksson Young Gun you will find that it is barely even listed ($8 High value and an unbelievable low value of 3.00). Of course BV isn’t everything, but looking on Ebay at Young Gun prices you will find they range from 6-8 bucks including shipping. A steal in my opinion for a player who was top 20 in the NHL in points this past season, an All-Star who was picked before Kessel (BV$25 in the same set) and has averaged 30+ goals a season for the last 3 years. One of the biggest insults to Loui Eriksson is his Young Gun card value is equal to far inferior players like Marc-Antoine Pouliot (fewer career points than Eriksson’s last season total), Fredrik Noreena (no longer in NHL), or even Michel Ouellet (of the Hamburg Freezers).

Jordan Staal on the other hand like Eriksson is also a good player. Staal has a few brothers than can play the game too and it seems that family celebrity is causing Staal to get some of the love that belongs to Eriksson in my opinion. Plus playing for the Penguins probably isn’t hurting his status either. Staal’s 06-07 Young Gun books for 20-50 dollars. That is over 6 times higher than Loui Eriksson. Is Staal that much better?

Let us compare:

GP:

Staal 369 games

Eriksson 371 games

Goals:

Staal 95 goals

Eriksson 112 goals

Assists:

Staal 103 assists

Eriksson 145 assists

Points:

Staal 198 points

Eriksson 257 points

+/-:

Staal +42

Eriksson +22

Offensively I wouldn’t say that comparison is close; there is nearly a 60 point difference between these two All-Stars. Granted, Staal is the better two-way player earning a Selke nomination in 2010. However, Eriksson is no defensive slouch either, he finished second on his team in +/- this year at +10. Not bad on a poor Stars team where more than half the team finished as negatives.

I guess that goes to show that hobby love is more than just skill. Often where the player plays and WHO the player plays with has a huge impact on their card value. If Loui was a Maple Leaf I can imagine his 8 dollar YG card would be more like 30. Same thing, I think if Jordan Staal was in Florida he would be worth about 8 bucks instead of 50.

Needless to say, fans like me who like underrated players able to scoop up their cards for next to nothing which is great, but, it would be nice to see these cards earn a little more financial respect! Are there any players out there who you think are seriously undervalued in the hobby world?